I’m a little bit late on this, but better late than never. AdAge ran a good article on Monday profiling two small/local businesses that have figured out how to make Twitter work for their bottom line.

One is Chicago’s Berry Chill, a yogurt shop in Chicago that tweets via its mascot, YogiJones. The other is New Orleans-based NakedPizza. You can click those links to browse their Twitter streams and see for yourself how they’re using Twitter.

Are they self-promoting? Yep. Of course. But that’s only a portion of their messages. Another portion is re-tweeting (resending) messages that happy customers have posted — think of it as sharing testimonials. But again, that’s only a portion of what they’re doing on Twitter.

Most important: They’re having conversations. They’re having fun. They’re engaging. They’re interesting. These are all the keys to social media success in general, and certainly Twitter success specifically.

There are a few interesting business tweeting models on Twitter; one being the news aggregate for a certain industry helps followers keep up, but I have found a few small shops using Twitter effectively. I like one coffee shop that sets the mood of the store by letting you know what music is playing, the type of beans they are roasting, who is working, who has come in to hang around, and what local event is going on in the store. I have not seen them use retweets, but they do respond to followers.

I am intrigued by the fact that even though Twitter is a social media/networking site, few people seem willing to engage in conversations. I discovered that those who do respond are termed tweetversationalists. Many seem only interested in imparting their wisdom to you while failing to listen to what you may have to teach them. Maybe this is why most users of Twitter leave after the first month? They do not find the “social” in it.

Interesting thoughts, Frank – thank you. I don’t agree that few people are willing to have conversations — quite the contrary, in fact. I’ve ended up in conversations with people I don’t know, and I see friends/followers having conversations on a daily basis.

OTOH, there are a lot of people/accounts who use Twitter solely to push material out, without engaging their followers — and that’s a shame.

I really think a large part of your Twitter experience depends on who you follow.